Q Is the declining stock price a factor in your decision to leave?Ī No. Hef will continue to be responsible for the magazine and be chief creative officer. We have below-market debt and $25 million in cash. It wouldn't be possible for me to be making this change if the company weren't in real strong shape.
Q The company recently has had layoffs and cut its DVD unit is that a factor in your departure?Ī I feel very good about the way things have gone. I really don't plan to look for a CEO job.
But I also have enjoyed the board work, the TV commentary and the speaking that I've done. I think I'm going to find ways to give back both in the nonprofit side and public service. Whatever I do is going to be done from here. Billy and I don't want to leave Chicago, so this is going to be home. I've always been drawn to wanting to do something else at some time in my life.Ī I genuinely envision that I will be doing a variety of things. I never intended to go into the family business. The board asked if I would stay on until the end of January. You know my dad really believes in pursuing your dreams. I talked with my dad about this last month in Los Angeles. While I will miss her leadership here, I believe that she will go on to achieve even greater personal success."Ī I've been planning for it for a while. Of course, as her father, my first priority is Christie's happiness. She has worked tirelessly to expand the company's franchise, and, as a result of her efforts, the company today has more consumers and fans than at any time in our history. In a statement, Hefner's father said: "I asked Christie to step up as president when the company faced serious financial difficulties more than two decades ago. Hef's teenage sons, Marston and Cooper, are not ready to replace her, she said.
Her replacement will be a professional executive from outside the family, she predicted. She believes the company will keep its headquarters in Chicago as well, she said. William Marovitz, will remain in Chicago, Hefner said. She and her husband, former Illinois state Sen.
In an interview Monday with Tribune Senior Correspondent Greg Burns, Hefner said she will not seek another chief executive post but instead plans to serve on additional corporate boards and appear more frequently as a speaker and television commentator. Kern, president of Kern Consulting LLC and former CEO of On Command Corp, joined Playboy's board in 2002. Playboy director Jerome Kern will serve as interim non-executive chairman while the company searches for Hefner's replacement. 31 and stay on the company's board until her replacement joins the company, when she will depart. Playboy stock has cratered this year, but Hefner said no one among the company's directors or investors urged her to resign. Its best-performing unit has been its licensing division, which has put the Playboy logo on apparel, jewelry and entertainment venues such as the the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Yet Playboy has suffered in the economic downturn, as advertising and circulation at its flagship magazine plunged and its adult TV and movie programs lost ground to free content on the Web.
Since then, Playboy's image has rebounded and her father, founder Hugh Hefner, has reached an unlikely new audience of young women through the cable television show Girls Next Door, which features his three youthful girlfriends. The 56-year-old Hefner has guided Playboy through rocky patches since taking over at one of the publishing and entertainment company's lowest points in the 1980s. Christie Hefner on Monday announced plans to end her 20-year tenure as chief executive of Chicago's Playboy Enterprises,and pursue other work in public-service and non-profit ventures.